Decades after execution, Bonhoeffer’s legacy lives on

On the morning of April 9, 1945 a man found complicit in the plot to kill Hitler was led naked into the execution yard at Flossenbürg concentration camp and hanged with a meat hook and piano wire. He died of asphyxiation just 11 days before Americans liberated the prison.

His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a Lutheran pastor, teacher and leader. Today he is renowned the world over as a hero saint of the Evangelical world and his theological impact continues to expand as he is honored for his robust faith and writing.

“Bonhoeffer was radical in his faith,” said Timothy Larsen, professor at Wheaton College and editor of the new book Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture. “The fact that he was willing to lay down his life to oppose the Nazis is inspiring in multiple senses,” he said, “but his books (namely The Cost of Discipleshipand Life Together) would be Christian classics even if he lived a boring life.”

Although Bonhoeffer first found appreciation in Evangelical circles in the 1960s, a renewed interest in his life, ministry and thought has been spurred on by the disputed biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Evangelical author Eric Metaxas.

Larsen said the biography featured overtones of Evangelical emphasis, a foreword by evangelical heavyweight Timothy J. Keller and vaulted Bonhoeffer to “same rarefied height” of heroics as Metaxas’ formerly chronicled Evangelical opponent of the slave trade – William Wilberforce.

Metaxas said that in life and words, Bonhoeffer “bespoke an authentic Christian faith” that could draw many to Christianity.

Of course, Metaxas’s book came under fire from some commentators who said it failed to appreciate Bonhoeffer’s more liberal views on theology and periods of vociferous doubt he faced through his trials in Nazi Germany. Richard Weikart, from California State University Stanislaus, said, “Metaxas presented us with a sanitized Bonhoeffer fit for evangelical audiences.”

“Evangelicals can continue to believe comfortingly that Bonhoeffer is one of them,” he said, “this view is naïve, but many prefer Metaxas’s counterfeit Bonhoeffer to the real, much more complex German theologian.”

Larsen appreciates the complexity of Bonhoeffer’s life and work and said, “one of the things that proves his greatness is that he defies easy categorization.” “Bonhoeffer was always trying to think about an issue so radically, so fundamentally, that it would no longer map on to our assumption that there are two sides and you must be on one or the other,” he said. He commented that both theological liberals and conservatives find points of connection, and contention, with Bonhoeffer.

While theologians and academics debate his legacy and impact, everyday Evangelicals identify with Bonhoeffer on a nonclerical level. They appreciate his courage more than his creed, his daring stand more than his doctrine. Eric Bohlmann, a student of theology from Portland, OR said, “Any man who would go back to his country to do his part in toppling an evil government, while falling in love, starts a training program for pastors, writes some great stuff, while in prison wouldn’t make those who didn’t beleive in God suffer through a Christian worship service unless they were willing to let it happen, and then to be killed in the end is my sorta guy.”

A local West Houston fan of Bonhoeffer’s, Christina Autry, said she appreciated that the theologian’s theology did not impede his witness or work.

It is this audacity and bold example of faith in the midst of affliction that even academics admit is his most potent legacy. Referencing Bonhoeffer in a Trembath lecture at Concordia University Irvine in March, Rev. Dr. James Bachman said that Bonhoeffer provides an example for modern day Christians to “sin boldly” and “act courageously” in his efforts against Hitler. He said his example was, “a living expression of how complex the project of right living is in the midst of a dying world.” Referencing the fact that Bonhoeffer sought absolution for his sins before his execution and that he continued to minister to those in prison with him in the last days of his life 68 years ago, Bachman said, “he was a genuine pastor in the midst of terrible circumstances.”

Larsen, expanding on Bonhoeffer’s contemporary impact said, “Bonhoeffer’s voice can inform many issues – even ones that have a specific shape today that is different from his own time. Many, many more issues need to be thought about in conversation with Bonhoeffer’s legacy.”

Nearly seven decades after he was executed by the personal order of Adolf Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s influence lives on. No matter their opinion in regards to his theology, everyone agrees that Bonhoeffer’s story is an inspiring one that lends lessons to be lived out today.

“Find out what you think is worth dying for and then live for that,” he said. Larsen said, “Most of us are not called to be martyrs, but all of us are called to be witnesses, this will always involve sacrifice and courage.”

There will always be those who choose to view “overtones of Evangelical emphasis” as a bad thing, while themselves over-emphasizing the “more liberal theology” and “periods of vociferous doubt.” Perhaps their opinions could be criticized in similar fashion. However, if you read Bonhoeffer’s works themselves, and what documents have survived, you can make your own decisions. The volume “Letters and Papers from Prison,” by Bonhoeffer, gives us some more insight into this complex pastor, theologian, and very human example of faith under trial. A sinner, yes – but one who followed a great Savior.

We all wish we could get more of the story from the original sources, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is some ways has been defined by what survived the chaos of the final days of the regime he opposed.
People like him, and like Mother Theresa, are complex people. They have their human faults, they say things that can be mis-interpreted, they have their doubts – as does each of us.
We will never know all of the facts but the ones we do know should put us in awe of a person who was willing to give all under those fearful circumstances.